The Commander (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781734518740)

The Commander tells the story of Commander Jacob Edwards of the United States Coast Guard. It starts off with him being a Lieutenant Commander heading up a special anti-pirate cartel task force on Falcon Lake in southern Texas along the Texas/Mexican Border. Jacob and his best friend, Chuck Yeager whom he commissioned into the Coast Guard with from Kings Point Merchant Marine Academy, were stationed at Falcon lake for three years as they cleaned up a lot of the criminal activity there. Secretly Jacob and Chuck also work for Captain Tommy Williams aka 'The Living Legend', of US Naval Intelligence. Tommy recruited them when they were Lieutenants serving on a Coast Guard Hamilton Cutter in the Caribbean. Tommy is one of the most successful SEAL Team leaders alive and now heads up a top-secret inter-military/law enforcement organization whose members have all been trained at his special school that offers SEAL tactics and training to other branches of the military and Law Enforcement. To date, Jacob Edward has been Tommy's finest student, and his most successful operative on the field. After they complete the mission on Falcon Lake Tommy reaches out to the commandant of the Coast Guard and requests that Jacob be promoted and given command of the Caribbean based Hamilton class cutter First Responder, the commandant agrees and gets the ball rolling to sit Jacob down in the captain's seat. The only thing is that once this is done Commander Jacob Edwards will be the youngest lowest ranking officer to ever assume command of a ship like that. But these days Tommy answers to the President, and the commander-n-chief wants his war on drug trafficking pouring in from south America escalated. Having an operative like Jacob in command of one of the best ships the Coast Guard has to offer would go along way to accomplishing that. Jacob receives his promotion and new command and as soon as he and his new crew head out on their shake down cruise in the Gulf of Mexico all hell breaks loose. A major threat has been found out concerning the biggest oil rigs in the Gulf. Someone wants to paralyze United States oil production and they don't care what they destroy or who they kill to do it. It is 2003, just two years after 9/11 and there is a war being fought half way around the world. The last thing the president wants is another terrorist like attack in the country and especially one that involves the oil industry. He tells Tommy to handle the problem and Tommy orders Jacob and his men to fix it as quietly as they can. He gives the Commander all the authority and resources he needs to handle every aspect of the response to the threat. But the enemy is wryly and has operatives of its own everywhere, some right inside the coast guard command structure. Commander Edwards handles this problem like he handles any other head on. Industrial sabotage, mass murder, and terrorism are just a few of the things he's got to stop as he and his men try to figure out what's really going in the Gulf. It's a thrill ride from New Orleans to Texas as the First Responder races back and forth across the Gulf of Mexico Chasing down one problem after another.